Week one report – Camp NaNoWriMo April 2017

Here’s the first of my weekly accountability reports for Camp NaNoWriMo’s April edition. At the end of the month I have to end my virtual retreat a little early to go actual camping. Reporting on Wednesdays means I’ll do report four before I leave, no excuses! So let’s take a look at how I did.

Target words by end of day 4: 17,000
Actual words by end of day 4: 6,272

I had several breakthroughs that made me feel like the work I’ve put in so far is really coming together.

I always intended to have a strong trio of main characters but one of them just wasn’t a whole person. He had motivations and characteristics on paper but they weren’t adding up to anything but bullet points. It was only when I started writing him through another character’s eyes that I figured out who he was and he became more than just a sum of his parts. That was a really satisfying moment.

It also triggered a cascade of changes. Once I knew who he was, I knew I needed his introduction had to be different than I’d planned. That made me look again at how I was introducing the other two protagonists and I wound up re-outlining the setup phase (about the first 20% of the book). I’m way more excited by the new version.

I was ill for the first few days of Camp and it hit my word count hard. When I get sick it makes my anxiety and attention issues worse. The compound effect leaves my brain in a fog that makes focusing on even the most basic things almost impossible, let alone doing anything creative.

Fortunately, it didn’t kick off a ‘I can never do anything, why do I even bother?’ negativity spiral and I think vlogging was a big factor in keeping me positive.

I’d love to catch up on my target word count this week but I think chasing those numbers will do more harm than good. Sometimes it’s better to play catch up, but I have a feeling this is not one of those times and I’m going to trust my instincts. For that reason, I’m adjusting my targets starting by getting back to writing 4,000 words/day consistently for a few days before I work on increasing that.

Therefore my new target to hit for next week’s report is 25,000 words. I’ll let you know how I got on next Wednesday but keep an eye out for my vlogs on YouTube if you want the daily update!